Hey Greg.., I was reading in another post about you talking about your iwaki pump for your aquarium,..I assume you are running the Japanese version and not the American version.,..just out of curiosity what size iwaki(s) do you run on your tank?
External pumps kind of intrigue me but until my trusty old' mag 12 goes out I'm quite happy with it's performance and reliability ,..I've heard a lot of super good things about iwaki's but I've also heard a lot of negative things too, mainly heat and noise,...kinda funny because most of the " good" reviews cite these two points as pluses, they are very quiet and produce very little heat.,I guess like anything,there's good reviews and bad ones about the same product and you just gotta sort it all out for yourself.
Reliability seems to be the one universal selling point,..I guess it's all a compromise of needs,application and budget.